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goruka writes "As a citizen of the open source community, I have written several applications and libraries and released under the BSD license. Because of my license choice, I often run into the situation where a company wants to write software for a closed platform using my code or libraries. Even though there should be no restrictions on usage, companies very often request a different license, citing as a valid reason that the creator of such platform has special terms forbidding 'open source software' in the contracts forced upon the developer. So my question is, has anyone else run into this situation, and are there examples of such licenses that I can provide? (Please keep in mind that I'm not a US resident and I don't have access or resources to afford a lawyer there.)"

You can have your program both licensed under BSD, and also offer the same code/library as closed-source for $xx at the same time, with different conditions and fewer restrictions.

Or just have them incorporate your BSD-licensed code into their larger work licensed under a more restrictive license. This is in contrast to say, LGPL, where the changes do have to be released back if any are made. If none are made, the code doesn't need to be released.

If it makes them feel any better, license it under a 4-clause BSD license, where they actually have to give you credit for it, but also provide it under a 3-clause license for everybody else. I've done exactly that, but in reverse, for customers. The publicly-released code is 4-clause, but the customer can do WTF-ever he/she wants with it, and doesn't have to credit me.

As long as the software/library is written completely by yourself, you're free to pick any license -- or dual-license it.

Also, when accepting any patches require them to be under Public Domain. This leaves you free to change licensing terms in the future and if you're the one who wrote a majority of the code then most people don't care.

They want to pay you to get a closed source license to comply with their contract? Good, means free money for you and perhaps a bit of contract work fixing bugs and feature

Looking at the problems MySQL seems to be having, this may not be a panacea. Monty Widenius (one of the original authors) is upset. MySQL was sold to Sun - Sun are now being bought by Oracle. Monty seems to be annoyed by this. In spite of him recieving a very large payout for the original sale to Sun, Monty would like the EU to rule that Oracle must change the existing MySLQ GPL licence to a BSD/Apache type so that Monty's new company MariaDB can fork MySQL and continue to use the commercial licence to gene

The only problem that MySQL is having with its licensing model is that Monty is a fucking idiot who wants to have his cake and eat it too. I'm sorry, you sold it. It's not yours any more. What you want no longer matters. Now shut up and go away.

The only problem that MySQL is having with its licensing model is that Monty is a fucking idiot who wants to have his cake and eat it too. I'm sorry, you sold it. It's not yours any more. What you want no longer matters. Now shut up and go away.

If only life was that simple. He did not sell it to SUN, the MySQL shareholders did of which he was only one of them. Monty had not been a majority shareholder since he went for venture capital support in 2001.

He's not asking if it's possible. His question, in part, was: "... are there examples of such licenses that I can provide?" In other words, has the text of a closed source license been open sourced such that anyone can use if for their closed source licensing needs?

Well... if you change that to a car analogy - if you put a device in your car that turns off the engine and locks the steering once the car reaches 40mph if theft is detected then anyone foolish enough to steal it gets what they deserve. A nice idea in theory but you'd be going to jail if it happened, or worse if it resulted in an accident that melted down a bus load of nuns.

Back to the original case, I thought it was BSD licensed so they wouldn't be stealing it anyway. They just wanted a license that bette

You just defined WGA there. But Microsoft isn't going to jail for it, are they? Your analogy breaks down because, whether it should or not, the sort of fucking about that is illegal in cars is absolutely fine under law with digital products.

You agreed to WGA though. They tell you from the outset that their product will cause you pain if it determines (correctly or not) that it has been obtained illegally. Sneaking a backdoor into a product is different.

You phrased it as a joke, but that is exactly what the poster should do.

Take the BSD 3-clause license and change the name to something like " developer license", then agree to license your code under said license for $x, where x is a reasonable amount. Basically they are paying for your written acknowledgement that the code is yours to give away and that if there are any copyright problems they know who to blame.

Take the BSD 3-clause license and change the name to something like " developer license", then agree to license your code under said license for $x, where x is a reasonable amount. Basically they are paying for your written acknowledgement that the code is yours to give away and that if there are any copyright problems they know who to blame.

First, I work for the government, and software licensing impinges upon my duties.

There's a lot of FUD out there. There's a lot of restrictions against 'freeware', but people get 'freeware', 'open-source', 'ad-ware', etc... All confused.

There's two reasons for being against 'freeware' - many are distributed as closed-source economically unauditable binaries. This leads to difficulties in gaining code security - the government can go after microsoft if they deliberately put a back door in their software, b

I don't get it. You seem to be mixing up tons of unrelated stuff. 1) The poster was talking about BSD license, not freeware, so that is irrelevant. 2) the poster is talking about a license change, not a maintenance contract which is what you are talking about, so non-sequitor again. 3) You cannot be sued for using BSD license in closed source. The only way it could happen is if the author did not really own the code, and just copied it from somewhere else. But licensing stolen code does not make you

"There's two reasons for being against 'freeware' - many are distributed as closed-source economically unauditable binaries. This leads to difficulties in gaining code security - the government can go after microsoft if they deliberately put a back door in their software, but some dude who published some freeware MP3 player?"

"Auditable binaries"? When was the last time you audited one? Ever read a Microsoft EULA? Neither the government nor anyone else will be going after Microsoft for anything, even if they provided a back door. I seriously doubt anyone can extract ANY remedy beyond possibly a refund of purchase price. Again, read the EULA. Feel the "protection".

"The second is maintenance - they don't want to become dependent upon unmaintainable software. It happens anyways, but if you're paying some company money, generally you get a warranty."

You mean like having the vendor go out of business and you can't get the source code? In 1990's, I managed a large data center. All of our hardware (and most of the software) came from the #2 player in the industry -- Digital Equipment Corporation. DEC was considered "too big to fail" back in those days. We had about $5 million in software licensing alone. Over the course of five years, the vendor that was "too big to fail" proved otherwise. It was a very expensive learning experience. At the time, our thought process was pretty much the same as yours -- and look how well THAT turned out. Those who ignore history will surely repeat it.

As for warranties, back to the EULA once again. Find me a software license that grants any warranty or accepts any liability beyond possibly refunding the purchase price. Just one. Got links to share?

As for copyright, are there any cases where parties who inadvertently possess infringing code have been held liable INSTEAD of the original source of the infringement? Where ARE these cases? Got links?

There have been several cases where large software companies were found guilty of patent or copyright infringement. Have ANY of their customers ever been charged with infringement for merely possessing the infringing software? Again, where are the cases and let's have some links.

You might be tempted to mention SCO vs. Autozone, but that case was about terms of a license. Autozone wound up in court primarily because they bought software from SCO, probably thinking they had the protections that you mention. As far as I know, companies that used Linux exclusively (and never SCO products) have never been sued by SCO. Makes you wonder how valuable this "protection" is.

Which is exactly what the original poster should do: Charge a non-nominal amount, and pay 10-20% to some lawyer to write up the license for them.

Heck, call some lawyer in the US, and tell them that for 15% of whatever they can negotiate, you want them to talk to this company and come up with a license/fee for you. There are probably more than a few lawyers who'll work under those terms.

Um, have you read the BSD license? It basically says "Do whatever the hell you want with this software just say I wrote it", I'd hardly call that restrictive and I don't see how a third party would really care. The terms of the BSD license are basically like someone publishing a public domain book, they really have little to no restrictions other than to put the name of the author on it (yes, I realize that in the public domain it doesn't matter, but most put down where its from already).

But BSD licenses, all versions of them, contains the following condition.

Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

I think that's what's bugging some vendors. They don't want to put other copyright notices but their own to binary distributions because it could be confusing to users. I can understand their point and I can understand copyright owner's

TFA... actually, TFS... said quite clearly that the developper in question is being restricted from using open-source materials by the people they're contracted to develop the software. That's where the third party having issues with BSD comes from.

That's also why, elsewhere in the comments, I suggested using cc-by, which basically gives the same rights as the BSD license by doesn't have the stigma of being an "open source" license (even though it is an open source license).

> It basically says "Do whatever the hell you want with this software just say I wrote it", I'd hardly call that restrictive and I don't see how a third party would really care.

We are talking lawyers here. If there is one thing they are good at, it's covering their and their companies asses. And if you had RTFA, you would know that, and I quote, Even though there should be no restrictions on usage, companies very often request a different license citing as a valid reason that the creator of such platform

The BSD license is already more permissive than any other license, and allows code to be used in proprietary products. There is nothing that a proprietary license would let them do that BSD will not, thus there is no justification for them to subject you to the trouble of researching this just because their policies are written by stupid people.

By making this clear to the people you work with, you could do the public understanding of free software a favor. By bowing to their obscene requests arising from ignorance, you would admit defeat in the face of the FUD coming out of places like Microsoft.

OP said in essence: We have a business requirement of no open software licenses.

What a proprietary (The BSD 3 clause reworded as mentioned above works fine.) developer license lets them do that a plain vanilla open source license does not allow them to do is WIN THE BUSINESS given the constraints of the situation.

Perhaps you are inexperienced in the relationship that a smaller vendor holds to a larger customer who has other options. The general rule is keep the customer satisfied. Ideally without corrupting your soul.;) Is the customer (here at least) an idiot? Why, yes, they are.... In fact, they are the idiot who is paying us so we are able to feed our babies and buy mommy the new minivan. Does it cost anything to do this special license? Would it cost us the business to not do it?

In the real world you work on moral goals by successive approximation. Sometimes you have to sugar coat the medicine, even if it doesn't taste bad. Failure to understand and honor these realities while flaying someone for a position that appears morally inferior to yours is itself a form of FUD.

Anyone who can't understand the BSD license without a lawyer is just dense. The developers are probably feeling like Dilbert right about now caught up in absurd rules. Practical reality:

a) Contact the developer of said source, he'll probably snicker at you and say it's free anyway, here's your absurd licenseb) Forget about it and write it yourselfc) Go on a long and painful quest against legal policy in a large company

For example, I once wanted to contribute to the Qt library, which should be simple right?

IINAL, but doesn't the GPL explicitly exclude any code provided as part of the Operating System and standard libraries. This allows you to use Microsoft Visual C/C++ and not require Microsoft to open up their msvcr**.dll binaries. This allows you to build GPL code on Windows or Solaris without requiring the Operating System to be GPL.

With Windows, Microsoft provide an SDK so that you can target programs for it. Likewise, WiiWare has an SDK it uses to target that platform, so I don't see what the problem is

Why would it not be legal? The law, by default, allows for anything to be contained in contracts except for specific exceptions that are deemed generally unconscionable. It makes perfect sense to include a clause like the one the OP is talking about when buying the source to a program for incorporation in a larger closed-source ecosystem. If you end up being given something with a GPL-esque license and forced to open-source some or all of your code, at least you have someone to sue for damages.

> It makes perfect sense to include a clause like the one the OP is talking> about when buying the source to a program for incorporation in a larger> closed-source ecosystem.

No it doesn't. It makes sense to require that the vendor certify that it has certain specified rights to all the software it supplies (which may exclude some Free Software licenses such as the GPL) but the terms described make no sense at all (and may not in fact be as described to the OP).

A "covered work" means either the unmodified Program or a work based on the Program.

[...]

When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures.

It forces people who wish to "convey" (for example, sell) work which uses the licensed code to license their code under the GPL 3.0 license. Force here is the lawsuits that result, if the original license holder discovers use of their code in your code.

Nobody is *forced* to anything. It is purely a matter for them whether they *wish* to distribute a GPL covered piece of software or not. It is their *choice* whether to distribute under the GPL terms, or not distribute at all.

"Force here is the lawsuits that result, if the original license holder discovers use of their code in your code."

You are illustrating that a lot of people are so used to licenses raping their ass that they can't imagine a license that ALLOWS you additional things that you normally can't do (like distributing a derivative product)

What happens if someone uses GPL code in their product but does not adhere to the terms of the GPL?
They are then not allowed to distribute the resulting product. If they do, they did infringe on the copyright of the authors.
The GPL doesn't matter at that point. The only thing that can happen is that the original authors sue for damages.
Mostly they will be satisfied if the sourcecode is released, but that is NOT a requirement. (Although most companies will do that as it's cheaper than to pay damages for all their already sold products containing the GPL code and removing the GPL code from their product which would be the way as with any other copyright infringement)

It's actually not uncommon. My current employer has a "no open source allowed without explicit approval by the legal dept, which takes an eternity and is a royal pain, so don't do it unless there's absolutely no alternative" policy. I am not kidding.

One of my previous employers had the same policy. This is not at all uncommon.

A few years ago a company found some of my code on the web. The code was released under an apache-like license. They contacted me because they wanted to buy it, but with a couple of minor modifications and under a different license. Essentially very similar scenario as the situation the OP found himself in. I agreed, made the modifications, and sold the original product plus the mods to them under a different license. I think it was cheaper for them to get the modifications they wanted, and the license they liked than develop the same code themselves.

As for me, I felt that nobody besides that company would have probably wanted those modifications anyway. That's probably not entirely true, but I convinced myself of that so that way I did not feel like I was totally selling out:) The Open Source community probably did not miss much by me not releasing those mods. I treated the modifications as "work for hire", and since I never released them, I avoided most of the possible legal difficulties. The original product stayed under the same license, of course. That company is now one of the 5 largest software companies, so I presume the practice is not unusual.

Not only is it legal but it is depressingly common in some, ah, less IT savvy industries who have bought the FUD that Open Source software is a security risk - by definition.

Yes, I have had customers insist on buying MS SQL Server licenses because MySQL is Open Source and therefore completely banned in their company (and, I was assured, their industry generally). Not suprisingly, all the major vendors in that industry are MS Gold Partners and all the companies list as major MS accounts. Chicken or Egg?

Many companies do not want open source code in their codebase because of the risk of having to release modifications or the source code to the public. The BSD license does not require it, I think, but other OSS licenses require users to release modifications to source code that are distributed to customers. For instance, if a developer throws BusyBox into your source code, then you make lots of changes to it, you would have to release those modifications to the public. For companies that do proprietary secr

This practice makes a lot more sense than it might seem. As a software manager on a large project, I do it all the time. There's lots of useful software out there, but my legal department does not always find the existing license acceptable. So, we offer to buy non-exclusive use rights to the software on a contract that we provide that gives us the protections we need as a large company to reduce our risks. For the developer, it is found money, typically from $3-$10K for small open-source pieces of code.

My client (a large multinational) has changed its stance on open source from "no way" to "we're lovin' it!" Of course our lawyers have had a few things to say about that, but not regarding the terms of the typical OSS license, which they claim is specific enough to hold up in a reasonable court.

The real issue is being held liable for IP infringement. If Microsoft is being sued for violating some patent in Word and ordered to stop selling it,

If Microsoft is being sued for violating some patent in Word and ordered to stop selling it, it means very little to us. Not our problem. However, if someone finds out that some bit of OSS violates their IP and knows that we use that software, they'll sue us.

Just like everyone using Word was sued.

They'll go after the original developer, not directly after users of the software except as a scare tactic (SCO, which didn't work).

If you incorporate code of a third party into your product, that is a different si

Provided you are the only copyright holder of the software, just ask them for a big money chunk, half in advance, and tell they'll even be able to write the license themselves, so there's no doubt that's what they want. Get the license to a lawyer (you already have part of the money) to review there's nothing you dislike and then sign it up.

1. Is the software you want to provide all yours, or a mix of peoples' work? If it's a mix, probably it's best to just give up and move on.2. Ok, it's all yours. Congratulations! Call the person who wants to buy/use it:

2a. Explain how the BSD license works in three sentences or less.2b. Ask if the sticking point is liability, copyright risk, ownership rights, or other.2c. Explain you don't have the time, expertise, or money to negotiate a contract, esp given the BSD contract already spells things out.2d. Point out that 2b issues can be resolved, but it's going to be $10K at a minimum for your time + legal fees.2e. If they still want to do it, ask for a letter of understanding that lays out the $amount for a non-exclusive right to use/copy/modify, etc.2f. Run the letter by a lawyer.2g. Profit.

Pretty much, yes. So, just lay it out as it is: respect the copyright, it's "as is," and no endorsement is to be implied; please read the actual text for the legal term; if you want anything more, that will cost real money.

Maybe I'm expecting too much of clients, but don't they realize that just because you offer one version of your code under a 'closed-source' license doesn't make it substantially different code than the open-source version?

Like I said, I'm probably being naive and thinking clients will be logical.:-o

Like I said, I'm probably being naive and thinking clients will be logical.:-o

One thing I learned from dealing with VCs in my previous job is that, and I quote, "logic has nothing to do with it". This was also in relation to a legal agreement... As a techie, all I can say is that business people do not make sense:)

Some companies are concerned about the 'viral' nature of the GPL in particular (some suit read an article about open source that talked about the GPL, and now 'open source' == GPL in his head) There are still many unresolved questions about the GPL in the US, as I'm aware it's only been rarely if ever tested in most jurisdictions in an actual court of law.

Personally, I expect to be compensated for my time and effort. This needn't be in money -- I release free software as a 'gift' for the community because I (and most of us) have received many such gifts in kind (Indeed, almost all the software I use, from the kernel down to the tiniest little nifty script) was a 'gift' to me by other members of the community). A commercial interest, on the other hand, will have to find some other way to compensate me for my work, as they (typically) are not part of the 'community' that has already compensated me for my time. Cash works well.

They want it, let them write it and specify the terms. You just need to read it to make sure that it doesn't limit your ability to continue giving the code away.

I'd let them pick the dollar amount for the licensing fee, too. Tell them to make a proposal, on both fee and terms, and you'll decide if it's acceptable. Odds are they'll offer you terms and money in roughly the same ballpark as what commercial software of the same type would cost.

Be certain that you own 100% of the code though. You don't want to get yourself in trouble for selling someone else's property.

For years Microsoft used BSD licensed code in Windows' networking. It never caused a problem for their customers. I wouldn't be surprised if removing it were a political decision.

For practical purposes "no open source software" means they customer wants a 100% Microsoft development and deployment stack. It means no Apache, no perl, php, and for practical purposes no Java either. The only entity in the world who has a rational reason to avoid BSD licensed software is Microsoft, and purely for the purp

Are they stupid? As Apple can clearly demonstrate, the BSD license is non-toxic. You should tell them to tell their legal staff to do their homework (and justify their paycheck) to learn the differences between one open source license and another. Simply banning all open source licenses is as stupid as declaring all muslims as terrorists.

If there had been copyrights and patents at the dawn of man, the first and last tool invented would have been the stick; lawyers, lawsuits, and the judges of Eastern Texas would have prevented all derivative works.

Even though there should be no restrictions on usage, companies very often request a different license citing as a valid reason that the creator of such platform has special terms forbidding 'open source software' in the contracts forced upon the developer.

I think they've answered the question for you. If their contract says they can't use open source software, then they are already forbidden from using any already-open code in the project, even if they get a special alternate form of license from you.

Also, if you've ever taken patches from other developers, and didn't have them sign a statement that giving you copyright over the patch, you're probably not legally allowed to relicense their work anyway.

Finally, while I can't speak to your motivations, if I released software under an open source license and someone came along and said, "hey, we need a different license for this, can you help us out?" My response would be, "how much are you paying me for it?"

they see what has been freely given (open source) as valuable to their business, yet they dont want to give something back - so, dont give in - this is exactly the sort of thing open source was invented to prevent - if they're so greedy that they think they dont have to give anything back - well then - they can just live without those freely-given benefits. they're inflexible- why should open licensors have to bend for the sake of their greed??

That's just foolish pride ; the license the code is already under explicitly doesn't compel them to give back. BSD licensing is a businesses wet dream - they get to do what the hell they like, and not give anything back.

If they want to throw money around to create some illusion of reduced liability with the source code, let them. And enjoy whatever it buys you.

wanted to use a gpl embedded c/c++ web server I wrote. One of the developers sent me an email asking if they could use it. I sent them an email to the extent of "I hereby grant you a license to use EHS (the library) in any way in multi-theft auto."

Either that was good enough for them or they didn't decide to use it afterall.

Make sure copyright in any committed patches is assigned to you, or require public domain, and take the dual license route. If they're adverse to using the BSD license, charge them for the privilege and get a lawyer to write up a software license.

Bit of money for you, a (hopefully) reliable license for all parties, and the organisation gets the code under a non-OSS license. Everyone wins.

Either your client wants to redistribute your code without restrictions, they don't understand licensing or they are persuaded by certain business partners that open source should be avoided.

If the client wants to redistribute, charge as many fees as you possibly can. Base license fee, sold site fee, per host sold fee, per user sold fee, think of anything else fee... Some organizations actually like that. If you have an ethical problem with that, see it as a price they pay for purification of their sorry souls.

Some companies will register the software purchased as an asset, and that is the procedure they must follow. They need a contract that specifies the license terms. There also has to be someone they can complain to, or contact to make improvements, or at least explain some code so they can make improvements (if you allow that). This is their procedure for operating business responsibly and that's fine.

Also as someone else mentioned, they might have to have their legal department, or paid external lawyers, analyze carefully an open source contract for viral bits. If they can write the contract for you it is easiest but make sure it contains what is shown below. Or you could use a template on the web.

People here telling you to tell them to buzz off if they won't accept BSD, etc. are not in business, and that's what is scary. Open source programmers need to be able to make a living in order to support doing their open source work, so a company asking you for a commercial liscense for that exact work you have already done is fabulous! Unless you have a job where you are paid to write open source software, this is ideal I should think. More like that and you wouldn't need to do other commercial work, right?

A commercial liscense costs money; no real company buys software for $1. The code may be exactly the same as the free version, it is okay to charge money for it.

All you need to do is make it easy for your client to purchase the a non-exclusive liscense to your product. This is actually an opportunity for you. You can make some money now, have a possibility for a support contract or more commercial work in the future, and you can say the code is used in a commercial product, which speaks of its quality.

Things you should specify (off the top of my head - maybe you can find some more information elsewhere):

Your (or your company's) name and address, and theirs. At the bottom, your name and the person on their side, with signatures.

Disclaimer of your liability: That the software is provided on an as-is basis and you the vendor have absolutely no liability for any defect in it, nor for any losses that may ensue through its use, or its legality in some jurisdiction, nor it is intended for illegal uses, or use in mission critical applications, etc. There is plenty of boilerplate around you can find that says this. (Assuming they are just buying something of yours and they aren't hiring you to create something for them. If they were, you'd have to guarantee against fatal-level defects, and that it meets a carefully agreed-on specification. Things like behavior in a cluster, usability on a certain architecture, 64-bit, Y2K or security related vulnerabilities would then require you to maintain it. You should add in it that any work to make improvements or repair bugs will be charged separately.)

The price. Charge them a reasonable price for it, this is a commercial license and you can include some support with it. If you include 10 hours support for free then maybe $1000 is okay, or more it depends on what the amount of code is of course. Charge for additional work you do at a certain hourly rate too if you want. Maybe you could discuss that here. You could sound them off about the price verbally. Priced beyond a certain threshold will make the decision get booted up higher.The deliverables. Usually they need something physical. Make a CD with a nice label, write a short instruction manual, and print it out on paper (also included as a PDF or text file inside the CD). The CD and manual are physical assets that they can put in the vault and have available for software audits.

Your responsiblity to support them. You may be tempted to say support is free forever, but don't do that, it costs you your time and they want value. Say limited support for a short amount of time and if they want it you can make some separate consulting or support contract with them.If they are paying you then you can afford to provide them with support to get up and running, or to discuss wit

You could have just said 'dual licensing is a valid option' without suggesting people who don't like dual licensing lack business experience. I would suggest this OSS Watch article [oss-watch.ac.uk] for a more balanced explanation of dual licensing, both the pros and the cons.

If all of the code they want to use is copyrighted by you, you can use whichever licenses you want. There's nothing stopping you from giving away code under an open source and selling the exact same code with a closed source license. Just make sure the closed source license won't become an obstacle for the open source license.

For some BSD licenses probably not. But by getting a license directly from the creator they guarantee there is 0% chance of being sued by someone with a bug up their ass. It's happened before where someone creates a piece of software only to have a third party sue on their behalf without ever even asking them. So this is just a way for company using the code to have another layer of legal protection. Is it needed? Not in a sane world, but when you find one let the rest of us know.

This software company for whatever reason does not feel comfortable using the software under the existing licence. It doesn't matter if they are afraid to get sued later or whatnot. Contacting the author of the code and requesting to license it for a commercial endeavor is the right thing to do. They should be commended for their effort, but for some reason most of the comments are chastising them for it. I say good on them.

Alternative licenses instead of BSD would be LGPL or Apache Public License.

But you are right - beware of closed licenses unless you have a perfectly clear specification that you aren't at risk of getting sued for any error in the code. I think that you should check with a Lawyer about your legal responsibilities and options to really avoid trouble. A commercial license usually also means commercial responsibility for the package.

And if you have created a package good enough to attract the interest of the commercial world it's probably better than any decently priced commercially available package anyway. What the commercial company probably fears is the risk of having to open up their own code to the world since their license is "contaminated" by BSD or whatever.

That's what I was thinking. I mean, basically they'd be lying to the concerned party by saying "Ohh, this isn't the OPEN SOURCE software you're afraid of." Even though it's the same code.The only reason I see it being an issue for a company is if it's GPL code and they don't want to deal with the GPL, but if they're too lazy to read the BSD license (or already know what it is for goodness sakes) then I guess shame on them.

Obviously if you wrote the code you can provide a "closed source" or closed licens

I mean, basically they'd be lying to the concerned party by saying "Ohh, this isn't the OPEN SOURCE software you're afraid of." Even though it's the same code.

There is one big difference: it might not be the concerned party that's afraid of Open Source. I mean, they want to use it. It's some other entity they have a valid contract with, and that contract says no OSS.

Depending on the wording of that contract, a new licence can solve a lot of headaches.

Wonder if the company in question would have the same worries if the code was released under creative commons... There's nothing in CC that prevents it from being used for something like computer code, and the cc-by license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) gives pretty much the same rights that the BSD license does.

I'm not saying this to be sarcastic, but one big difference could be if he gets paid.

If they're offering to pay you for a closed source license, then it's worth time to research it. If they want the code free, they got no business asking a coder to do even more work for them in the form of a new license for free.

Yeah, I would expect that, but it's an important point that's left out. And, of course, the question is how much are they willing to pay?

Since the expense of a lawyer is significant, that leads me to think the potential income is not that high. If it were and it were me, I'd be calling a lawyer ASAP and have a license ready for me when they had the contract and check ready for me.

Really? Every proprietary piece of software I've worked on, had that in its Eula. Who knows what the purchasing companies losses might be if you left a dangling pointer? You never know how someone is going to use a piece of software.

In any case, if you supply a closed source license, you're going to need to take out professional indemnity insurance for a very large amount, and maintain that insurance for many years. So you need to cost the premiums, the likely rise in premiums over the years, and the hassle of organising it into your fee.

When someone uses your open source software there is in law no implied contract between you and them, because they haven't supplied you with anything of value in return for your software. So if they sued you, they would (in sane jurisdictions) lose (provided you could afford to defend yourself, and people like FSF and EFF would probably help). However as soon as you accept anything of value in return for your software, you have a contract and so you're potentially liable if failures in the software cause damage to the user. You might or might not win in court if sued, but no-one would help you so you're likely to be bankrupted if you lose. So you need insurance. So you need to cost for it - and that means the cost of your licensed software is going to be quite high.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, particularly not in whatever jurisdiction you are in. But I have been in exactly the position you describe, and those are my conclusions. In practice you're probably going to be put to quite a bit of work and inconvenience working out exactly what is would cost you to provide a closed source license, and when you do your potential customer will back away rapidly.

In any case, if you supply a closed source license, you're going to need to take out professional indemnity insurance for a very large amount

I don't see why that should be the case. Look at any Microsoft product - it explicitly says in the licence that there is no warranty and no guarantee of fitness for purpose. There's nothing to stop any closed-source licence saying "You cannot have the source code. You have no guarantee that this will work. If it breaks, you own both pieces."

It depends on what the concern is; if the attachment of an open source license is the concern, a different license can take care of that (assuming that there is an entity that maintains copyright over the entire work). If the public availability of the code is a concern, then no.

I totally agree that if the question was different then the answer might be different too. The person submitting to Ask Slashdot stated the concern was that they must not include Open Source software. Obviously if the concern is different than what he stated then my answer may not apply.

Exactly my point. The submitter, and conceivably the company that he is dealing with, need to understand what they want, and what the final customer wants, before they can figure out how to acheive that goal. When I posted everyone answered the question they wanted to assume he asked rather than the one he in fact asked. We are both on the same page; we're just speaking slightly different dialects;-)

Big companies fear open source because it's a threat to their intellectual property. If a company uses an open source product, and that product (accidentally and unknowingly of course) infringes on one of their patents, then that company loses the ability to enforce their own patent in the future.
Patents are the "mustard gas" of big companies. Everybody has them, and nobody uses them. But you better have them stockpiled, or somebody might use theirs against you. Some open source licenses rob companies of this line of defense. The hoops one has to jump through at a big company just to use Log4J are maddening.

+1 FUD

The above might apply to GPL-3; but no one who can read and think can honesty believe it about BSD License.